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A senior official in the United Nations-backed Libyan government in Tripoli said his administration was ready to create a new guard to patrol the country's southern border, but it would only be possible to secure the frontier if other countries helped.

"If we don't resolve Southern Libya's problems, we will not resolve the migrant issue," Abdulsalam Kajman, vice president in the government headed by Fayez Seraj, told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"The difficult economic situation there pushes lots of young people to work for traffickers," Kajman said, adding Italy was willing to train the new guard.

Libya primarily needs administrative and logistical help, he added, saying Turkey donated 20 tonnes of medicine but that needed to be taken to southern Libya and distributed.

“Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told us Italy is ready to dispatch mobile hospitals, but we need other countries and the European Union to lend a hand too," he said.